Page 2 of Trailer Trash

The look on his face told me he’d never let it go.

Lie it was.

I snatched it out of his hand. “It’s my cousin’s bad idea of a joke,” I said with a grimace. “I think she’s not-so-secretly jealous.”

“Jealous of what?” Miss Dorie asked.

I opened my mouth to tell her the truth, but Joe said, “A Rivers family inside joke.” He shot Miss Dorie a sympathetic grin. “Neely Kate tried to explain it to me, but I never got it.”

“Huh,” Miss Dorie said with narrowed eyes.

Huh, indeed.

“Have you had any more trouble with those teenagers egging your house?” Joe asked her.

“Nope,” she said. “You seemed to put the fear of God into ’em.”

“If you have any more trouble, you be sure to let me know.”

“I will, Deputy Simmons.” She headed out the door, none the wiser that Joe had hijacked some grade A gossip from her.

As soon as she left, Joe crossed his arms over his chest. “Who are the letters really from?”

I gave him a look that suggested his question was ridiculous. “I told you. My cousin.”

“And since when did you have cousins in Little Rock?”

How did he know where it was from? The dang postmark.

I tried to hide my reaction by scrunching up my mouth in irritation. “Who said I didn’t? You don’t know everything about my family, just like I don’t know everything about yours.”

“That’s for your own protection, Neely Kate.”

“Like you lied to Miss Dorie about me being your sister?”

His face paled.

“Are you ashamed of me, Joe?”

His mouth flopped open like a hinge. “How can you ask me that?”

“Because you went to great lengths to make sure Miss Dorie didn’t find out we’re related.”

His face softened. “It’s better this way,” Joe said. “And we’ve never gone out of our way to tell people.”

“But we haven’t hidden it either.”

He paused and seemed to weigh his words before he said them. “Maybe we should.”

He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d shot an arrow into my heart. “So youareashamed of me.”

“Neely Kate,” he soothed as he stood and reached for my upper arms. “Don’t take it like that.”

I noticed he didn’t deny it. “How am I supposed to take it, Joe?”

“Can’t you see I’m trying to protect you?”

“You keep saying that, but you never explain what you mean. Protect me fromwhat?”

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